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Garrison Keillor’s decision to pen the column without disclosing a pending investigation by MPR into his own actions violated The Washington Post's standards of transparency for opinion writers, the newspaper said. | Jim Mone/AP Photo

Washington Post drops Keillor column following ouster

The Washington Post dropped the column of ousted public broadcaster Garrison Keillor on Thursday, a day after he was fired from Minnesota Public Radio over allegations of workplace misconduct.

Hours prior to his firing, Keillor, the creator and longtime host of “A Prairie Home Companion” who was accused of “inappropriate behavior,” penned a column in the Post defending Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who has also come under fire over allegations of sexual impropriety.

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Keillor’s decision to pen the column without disclosing a pending investigation by MPR into his own actions violated the Post's standards of transparency for opinion writers, the newspaper said.

“Readers are entitled to a basic level of transparency from the columnists they read in The Washington Post,” editorial page editor Fred Hiatt said in a statement Thursday. “Garrison Keillor failed to meet that standard this week.”

He added: “Knowing he was under investigation for his workplace behavior, he should not have written a column on that subject; or, if he was going to write, he should have told his editors and readers that he was under investigation. Instead, he wrote a column defending Sen. Al Franken without any disclosure of his own situation.”

In the opinion piece — titled "Al Franken should resign? That’s absurd." — Keillor blasted those calling for a resignation from Franken, calling it “pure absurdity."

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“The atrocity it leads to is a code of public deadliness. No kidding,” Keillor wrote.

MPR Director of Communications Angie Andresen announced that the NPR member station would end distribution of “The Writer’s Almanac,” which Keillor produced, and cease rebroadcasts of “The Best of a Prairie Home Companion hosted by Garrison Keillor,” a compilation series of the program’s greatest hits.

"MPR takes these allegations seriously and we are committed to maintaining a safe, respectful and supportive work environment for all employees and everyone associated with MPR. We want a workplace where anyone who experiences unwanted behavior feels comfortable in reporting concerns to MPR," Andresen said in a statement.

MPR said the decision was made after an independent investigation into Keillor’s conduct. They said "there are no similar allegations involving other staff."

Keillor cast the incident in a different light in an email to The Associated Press, saying he was dismissed over "a story that I think is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard."

Garrison hosted the weekly MPR show from 1974 until 2016, when he retired from the show, though he stayed on as a producer for “The Writer’s Almanac.”